Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:03:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Red <redfirewitch@yahoo.com>
Subject: Hide In Plain Sight: Chapter 17 - The Alliance

Title: Hide In Plain Sight 17/20

Author: Red (redfirewitch@yahoo.com)

Note: Hi everyone! I'm sorry for the delay. I know I
promised to finish this story by Jan 8. Unfortunately
I got myself into a little mess. Anyway, it's
confirmed that the story going to have a total of 20
chapters.

Dedication: I was unsure about this chapter but
someone told me it was "...NO WAY IN HELL BORING".
Thank you! I owe you smut!

**
Chapter 17: The Alliance

His head hurt like a bitch. No. His head hurt like a
bitch with PMS.

That was the first thing JC noticed as he opened his
eyes. He reached up to touch the side of his head and
hissed in pain. He could feel the sticky moisture of
blood matting his hair. He could smell it. He felt a
little nauseous and closed his eyes to let it pass.

"So sleeping beauty's finally awake."

JC opened his eyes again and looked around to find the
source of the voice. There, standing against the
opposite wall, was Phillip Rondall, smoking a
cigarette and smirking.

/He should be dead. I had him right where I wanted.
Then how...?/

It came to JC in a flash. The sound behind him.
Turning to see. The wrench heading for him and...Matt.
JC looked around for the other man.

"He's awake?" Matt asked, standing up from where he
had sitting out of direct sight.

It was him. No mistake about it. Justin's boyfriend,
the man who Justin trusted with his heart and body,
the man who he himself had trusted enough to let
Justin be with, was standing there beside Phillip.

"Matt." JC said. "You bastard."

"Nice to see you too, JC." Matt smirked.

"How......why......"' JC said, finding it hard to talk because
his throat felt so dry.

Phillip picked up a glass of water from the nearby
table as he came to kneel beside JC. JC scrambled as
much as he could away from him. Phillip just smiled as
he ran the back of his fingers along JC's cheek and
brought the glass to JC's lips. JC flinched away and
winced when his head hurt in response. Phillip
grinned.

"I must say I'm impressed, Joshy boy. You had me by
the balls for a second. You actually managed to find
me. Now how did you do that, hmmm?" Phillip asked,
drawling speculatively.

JC just kept silent.

Phillip laughed.
"That's ok. You don't have to tell me. I can guess.
Probably followed me from Marty's eh?"

"Shit Phillip! Marty's!? How did he know.......wait! The
letter? I knew that was a mistake! Mentioning that
place in the letters! You said he wouldn't know where
it was!" Matt shouted.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Vance. Maybe Liam
mentioned the place to him. How was I to know?"

Matt glowered at Phillip.
"Phillip, you damn near screwed everything up!" Matt
shouted.

"I would keep the attitude down, Vance." Phillip said,
his voice cold.

Matt swallowed in fear and fell silent. Something
which JC didn't miss. Phillip turned his attention
back to JC and began to run a finger along JC's
jawline.

"It's good that he followed me here. Your plan would
have taken much longer for me to get what I want. This
worked out well."

"The hell it did. The cops are out looking for him.
God knows who saw him around here!" Matt argued.

"Which is why we are moving out of here."

JC, who had been trying his best not to puke at the
closeness of Phillip to him, tensed slightly at that
bit of information.

"What? Move him? How? Where?" Matt asked.

"I have a place in mind. You didn't think I was going
to stay in this shit hole for long, did you?" Phillip
said standing up.

"I don't like this, Phillip. That wasn't the plan."
Matt said.

JC glared at Matt.
"What was the plan, Matt? Get yourself involved in six
feet of crap? Because that's exactly what you're in
partnership with!"

Phillip laughed.
"You don't have a very good opinion of me, do you
Joshy boy? I'm so hurt."

"Pass me the gun. I'll put you out of your misery."
JC, said in a venom-laced voice.

Phillip laughed that annoying laughter of his again.
"Quite the mouth on you, boy. Can't wait to try it
out." His eyes flashed malevolently.

Once again, JC had to fight his nausea.
"I'm going to kill you, Phillip. And this time you're
going to stay dead."

The smile on Phillip's face disappeared as he rubbed
his chest, remembering his bullet wound.
"You're not in a position to make threats, boy.  I'm
still pissed at you for shooting me the first time.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm going to
forget that easily."

"Is that what's this is about? Revenge?" JC spat out.

"Contrary to what you believe, I never intended to
look for you. I was happy enough to get away from the
cops. As cute as you are, I wouldn't have wasted my
time coming after you if it wasn't for the fact that
your 'friend' here had tracked me down." Phillip said.

JC looked at Matt is shock. All this while, he though
that Phillip had threatened Matt into helping him.
"You......you looked for him? How did you know about him?"
JC whispered in shock.

Matt smirked.
"I'm a reporter, JC. A good one at that. That's what I
do. Dig up secrets. I always knew that you weren't as
clean as you love to make yourself out to be. Justin
bought it though, didn't he? Bought that whole, sweet,
boy next door, 'Josh is perfect' shit. But I knew
better. By sheer luck while I was talking to a cop
friend of mine from Maryland, I found out that your
name was mentioned in some police files in relations
to some drug bust. I looked it up. The police files
stated you as Liam's friend. But I suspected that it
was more than that because you are such a slut!" Matt
spat.

"I wanted to find out more so I dug deeper. I wanted
to find out more about Phillip. I wanted to destroy
you using him and I got a break when some of my
contacts came through." Matt said, with a smug smile.

Phillip took another drag on his cigarette
"Got to hand it to Vance. I thought I was in the
clear. I got away to Mexico but he managed to track me
down. I got wind of someone looking for me. Vance got
a little too close for my comfort so I came looking
for him to finish him off. Better to be the predator
than the prey. Well maybe not in your case, eh Joshy
boy?" Phillip said and laughed.

Matt looked slightly peeved at the mention of Phillip
wanting to kill him.
"I made a deal with him instead. I offered him money
if he would help me get rid of you! All he had to do
was provide me with the details of Liam's death and
make those phone calls. I wrote the letters. I wanted
to make you live in fear. I knew that it would only be
a matter of time before you broke down! Then
everything would be ok. The phone calls would stop.
The letters would stop. And ypu would be in an asylum
somewhere. But you couldn't do that could you? You had
to come here and make everything harder."

"You wrote the letters?" JC asked in disbelief. Those
letters had been the worse. The nightmares were fuel
by the cruel words, blaming him for Liam's death.
Telling him that he was better off dead. Telling him
that he would only hurt the people around him if he
was alive.

"Yeah. Did you like them?" Matt asked, smirking.

"Why did you threaten Justin?" JC asked, remembering
the first letter.

"I had to make it more believable. I had to make you
think it was Phillip all along. And I knew that the
thought that your precious group might be in danger
because of you would hurt you even more."

JC couldn't understand Matt hatred for him. He shook
his head in confusion.
"Why Matt! What did I ever do to you?"

Matt lost his smirk and looked at JC as if he had
asked the most inane question.
"YOU TOOK JUSTIN AWAY FROM ME! THAT'S WHAT YOU DID TO
ME!"

"WHAT!?" JC wondered if Matt had lost it. "Justin
loves you! He only sees me as his friend!" JC said,
hating having to even admit the words to himself.

"You have no idea do you?" Matt laughed harshly. "He's
been in love with you even before he even met me!"

JC looked at Matt as if he was crazy.
"My god! Do you actually believe that? Are you that
far gone?"

Suddenly Matt was kneeling in front of him, grabbing
him by his collar and shaking him hard.
"DON'T PATRONIZE ME, JC!" He glowered murderously at
JC. "I'm not stupid! I tried! I tried so hard! I tried
to convince myself that I was wrong but it's fucking
obvious! No matter what I did, he always put you
first! I would travel miles to come see him and I
couldn't spend one hour alone with him because 'Josh
wanted to check out that club' or 'Josh asked if we
wanted to have a game of b-ball' or 'The other guys
are at a club. Josh's been feeling a little down and I
don't want him to be alone!' Josh this! Josh that!
Josh Josh fucking Josh! I love him so much but it
doesn't matter to him because if you need him, he'll
run to you! And you milked that!"

JC couldn't believe what he was hearing. He just knew
that Matt was wrong. If Justin did love him, why
didn't he tell him?
"You're wrong. You're so wrong." JC said in a daze.

Matt snorted and stood up.
"Doesn't matter. Not any more. Because you're no
longer going to be a problem." Matt said with an
almost unearthly calm. "Kill him, Phillip. Don' t
waste any more time."

JC was taken aback by the coldness of the words.

Phillip smirked.
"In due time. I haven't had my touching reunion with
Joshy boy."

JC tired to ignore the leer in Phillip's gaze.

"But first you're going to help me move him some
where."

Matt frowned but didn't argue.
"Fine."

"Stay with him. I'm going to bring the van to the
back." Phillip said.

He started to head for the door, then turned back.
"Oh right. Better safe than sorry as ass. I'm not
going to underestimate you again, Joshy boy."

Phillip produced a thin black wire from within a
drawer. He then knelt beside JC and pulled him
forward. JC didn't even struggle because every
movement was hurting his head so much that everything
he saw became blur. Phillip pulled JC's arms backwards
and secured both his wrists with the wire. Tightly. He
then pushed JC back against the wall, and pressed his
mouth to JC's. The younger man jolted violently and
pulled away but was hampered by the wall behind him.
The pain in his head was intense but that didn't stop
him from spitting at Phillip. Phillip sneered and
wiped away the spit from his face.

Standing up, he said, "Very soon, Joshy boy." With
that, he stormed out off the apartment with Matt
guarding JC.

Matt laughed.
"He's got it bad for you. Isn't that sweet?"

JC glared at Matt with tears in his eyes.
"Fuck you."

"Well apparently you're the one who's going to get
fucked." Matt said, venomously. "I'm glad I'm not you.
The son of a bitch is one mean bastard."

JC then remembered that Matt was afraid of Phillip. He
put aside his own fears at the moment and decided to
try to do something to get out of here. And at the
moment, the only possible way was through Matt. He had
to give it a shot.
"Matt, don't do this. Please."

Matt looked at him in surprise and laughed.
"It's already done, JC."

"You can still make things right. Justin doesn't love
me. He himself told me. You made a mistake!"

Matt snorted.
"Justin told you he didn't love you? You two are so
screwed up that I pity you. Then again maybe Justin is
screwed up because of you. But I'm saving him from
you. Once you're gone, he will realize that I'm the
only one for him. Once you're gone, NSYNC will be over
and I can get Justin all to myself."

"If you believe that, you're more demented than I
thought." JC laughed humorlessly. "NSYNC will go on
and even if it doesn't, you can never take Justin away
from music. It will always be a part of him."

"Oh keep your 'music in the soul' crap to yourself. Do
you really think he can go back into a studio without
thinking about you?"

JC repeated his mantra again.
"He's NOT in love with me!"

Matt fell silent.
"Ok."

JC looked at him surprise.

"But I still want you dead."

JC slumped in defeat.
"You're going to destroy Justin when he finds out what
you did, Matt."

"If he finds out."

JC looked at Matt.
"You stupid bastard! Do you really think that once I'm
dead, everything is going to be over? You're in
partnership with a piece of shit! This is never going
to be over until one of you is dead!"

For the first time, Matt looked a little unsure.
"Shut up! I know what I'm doing. I just pay Phillip
off and he's going to flee to Mexico. He knows I can
easily turn him in."

"And he knows that you won't because you have got more
to lose than him if he tells the cops what you did!"

Matt was silent.

"You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, Matt.
You really think he's going to keep him word? He's
going to blackmail you for the rest of your life!"

Matt was still silent. Encouraged by this, JC pushed
once more.

"But if you let me go now, we can put him behind bars.
Forever. On kidnapping charges."

Matt was silent as if in thought and for a moment, JC
let himself hope.

"Nice try, JC but no go." Matt said with a pleased
smile.

JC closed his eyes and shook his head.
"You stupid bastard!" he hissed.

The door suddenly swung open again, startling them
both. Phillip walked in.
"All right. Let's get this show on the road."

In his hands was a huge burlap sack. JC knew that they
intended to dump him in there and carry into the van.
He began to move away in fear. Matt grabbed JC and
stopped his struggles.

Phillip knelt down beside them.
"Lay still. This won't hurt a bit." Phillip said and
covered JC's nose with a cloth drenched with
chloroform.

The smell hit JC's senses and soon he found himself
losing consciousness.

**
tbc...